A US court on Tuesday sentenced a Cuban-American to 15 years in jail without parole for hijacking a PanAm plane to communist Cuba in 1968. Luis Armando Pena Soltren, a US citizen, had pleaded guilty in March to conspiracy to commit air piracy, interfering with crew members and kidnapping during the attack on PanAm flight 281 out of New York four decades ago.
He had called for clemency and expressed remorse after voluntarily returning from Cuba in late 2009 to face the charges. But judge Alvin Hellerstein told him: "People have to respect the law. Sometimes it's important to have a strict sentence." The PanAm flight had been bound for Puerto Rico when Pena Soltren and two others used pistols and knives to terrify the crew into submission and divert the flight to Havana.
The hijacking was part of an epidemic of air piracy in the 1960s, with dozens of US flights seized by hard-line leftists or escaped criminals - a number of whom are believed still to be at large in the isolated Caribbean state. Pena Soltren had reportedly returned home because he wanted to see his family, and was immediately taken into custody. He was led away Tuesday after a tearful exchange with his wife and daughter in the New York courtroom.